summary | Caroline owns an ice cream shop which seems to attract every supernatural creature she's ever encountered (and when Kol Mikaelson, back from the dead asks her for a job - excuse me, what, pause, rewind).
la dolce vita
| blood on your hands, but your hands still roam |
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This is what Caroline remembers of Kol. He's dashing, but then again his entire family is. He's also very much crazy (and not the I like to pretend I'm a unicorn crazy), no, the kind that tries to kill her best friend and her little brother. He's the reason that they have to trap Klaus in the Gilbert house and she gets bitten by a werewolf – again.
But most importantly, what Caroline remembers about Kol Mikaelson is that he is dead – and not undead like so many of her friends, but dead, dead. A white oak stake piercing his heart and ash, so much ash (and cheering - she remembers cheering).
"Why are you here again?" When Caroline decides to pack a bag and disappear very, very far away from Mystic Falls – she decides to leave far away. Supernatural world be damned, it cost her enough already.
"There's a help wanted sign on the door." He looks at her as if she is just a dumb blonde and he has to speak very slowly so she can understand him. She bites her tongue to keep from insulting him and merely raises an eyebrow.
"You want a job. You?" He nods his head – again – running a hand through his messy black hair. "And besides the fact that you tried to kill my best friends more time than I can count, why would I hire you?" Her voice squeaks and she's glad that the last customer's already left.
He sighs, looking bored and so out of place in her blue and pink shop. If anyone has the right to be impatient, it's her. He's lucky she doesn't throw his sorry ass from her shop.
"Look, Caroline." Here it is, with the holier than thou attitude. "I could go on and on about how I'm back and that I don't want to go look for my family in New Orleans, but I think you already figured that out." She nods. "Just give me the damn job, I'm a thousand-year-old vampire, I can handle this."
"You do realize that I'll expect you to actually work?" And she can't even believe that she's considering this. "That you'll have to show up on time? That you'll have to serve customers and wipe tables and actually be pleasant." He rolls his eyes – she ignores him. "No feeding on the customers, no blood stains on the table…"
"I get it." And he really does seem to get it.
He wants to get away and actually have a chance at normalcy? Well, she can't fault him for that – she opened this place exactly for that purpose, to forget that her mother will never come back or that Mystic Falls is doomed to eat at her friends and family until none of them remains.
She wants to roll her eyes at herself because she really is too nice and when she looks into his eyes, hazel and crystal blue battling so well, she can actually recognize an emotion in them. She's nodding her head before she can stop herself and takes a deep breath.
"Fine." His face relaxes until there's only a shit eating grin displayed on his cool features. "You'll have to wear the pink apron." She thinks that will wipe the smile on his face, but it only seems to widen.
"I look good in everything, sweets." She wonders what it is with man with accents always giving her pet names. All she knows is that he is looking at her like he's ready to kiss her – on the top, with tongue – and she's already started regretting this.
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Fast-forward two months…
Business is good, she'd always had a decent amount of customers, but it's even better since Kol started working for her - she won't ever admit that to him and certainly not out loud to anyone else but herself even under extreme torture.
"What can I get for you, beautiful?" And the trio of girls who look young and human and so full of life and just normal, Caroline's almost envious, giggle with eagerness and one blushes so furiously that Caroline thinks she might faint.
"Oh, just pistachio for me." There's a lineup, one they both manage with ease. The perks of being vampires, Caroline guesses. You don't feel the soreness from standing up for so many hours on end and they move fast enough that she hasn't bothered hiring another person and has taken down the help wanted sign.
Caroline rolls her eyes and Kol's smirk widens when he notices she's staring. She bites back an insult and instead uses her best sugar-coated smile for the man next to the three girls.
"What can I get for you?" The man stammers, caught off guard by her toothpaste commercial smile and her pretty blonde hair and she pats herself on the back mentally because she can still have that effect on men without using compulsion. He points to the strawberry and she licks her lips. She beams when he leaves her a five-dollar tip for a three-dollar ice cream bowl.
"Using your charms for money, that's my kind of girl." She elbows him so hard he actually doubles over. He lets out a curse word and she completely forgets he exists as the second wave of people starts rushing inside for ice cream.
Caroline doesn't admit that she likes to work with him, that him being here makes her feel a little less lonely and even if more than half the time they banter or actually hurt each other, it makes her feel safe to know she isn't alone.
And he never tells her that he appreciates her, that she reminds him of Bekah when she talks about shopping or redecorating the shop and he tunes out or that he can understand why Nik is so infatuated with her.
Caroline isn't the sentimental type, not anymore, and Kol's never been. But somehow, they make it work. Caroline smiles and Kol turns up his charms and the tip jar fills up fast and they laugh about it without even having to say anything.
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Rewind eleven months…
When Caroline decides to leave Mystic Falls, she doesn't just pack a bag and get inside her car. She puts a for sale sign in front of her house, her mother's house – her childhood house and sends half of her belongings to good will because she decides small towns aren't for her anymore.
She wants to blend in, maybe even disappear. She wants to let go of the past and try to move forward and leaving Mystic Falls behind seems like the only way. She leaves a note for Bonnie, who is slumming it in Europe with Damon and Ric, tells Stefan that he should get out too if he has the chance and visits Elena one last time before packing up her car.
She starts breathing when she sees the 'Now leaving Mystic Falls' sign, but it's only when she's thirty-nine hours into her trip and she's checking out apartments in a dinner in California that she allows herself to relax.
Everything somehow falls into place when she pulls up in San Francisco. She bought new sunglasses which were too expensive and too big, but she loves them. She's got short shorts on and a white tank top and with her blonde hair and eternal youth she just seems to fit amongst the crowd.
Three days in, she stumbles across a rundown building and she compels the first person she sees to tell her what it used to be. Turned out it was an ice cream parlour, but the owners packed up and left because of old age. The same day, she leaves with the deed to the two story building and she's unpacking upstairs because it seems logical to live on top of what is going to be her future ice cream empire.
She's Caroline Forbes and she thinks, in a way, her mother would be proud to know her daughter is moving on. And that idea is the one that drives her, the one that makes her get up in the morning.
And it's enough for now.
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Rewind three months…
When Kol is back from the dead, the first thing that he does is yawn, stretch and say to no one in particular that he is hungry. Trust him to make coming back to life something so mundane.
He goes on a rampage, kills at least ten people that night before quenching the rest of his thirst in a dive bar he finds in an obscure back alley. He keeps up the pattern for a whole week, until he decides he should probably find whoever brought him back to life and maybe thank them – or kill them, he hasn't worked out the last part just yet.
Two weeks in and that person clearly doesn't want to be found. He kind of gives up, thinks he probably should make a house call to his family in New Orleans, drink the city dry with Nik, get a good scolding from Elijah and ruffle Bekah yet again. And then the most curious thing happens.
He remembers her from those days in Mystic Falls, the ones that ultimately lead to his death. She's the blonde perky thing that Nik is so infatuated with he threatens to pull out his liver. She walks past him with her hands full of shopping bags, another beautiful face in a sea of humans. He almost misses her. On his quest to find his supposed savior, he travels almost everywhere, trust him to come across the baby vampire.
He forgets all about New Orleans and instead spends three days just following her around. She makes trying to be human so easy and maybe it really is for her. He follows her as she runs errands, stalks her as she works in her ice cream parlour, always with a pretty smile on her face and glow about her that almost makes him forget he is tailing a vampire.
He decides she can help him; he just doesn't know with what yet. And this is exactly why he breaks into her store when he's sure there is no customers left, compels her to sit still because she keeps throwing ice cream spoons at his head and, when she agrees to his request, he doesn't kill her.
Now, if he can just make her forget her tried to kill her friends a few times, they might actually get along.
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Fast-forward five months…
Niklaus keeps tab on Caroline, partly out of habit, he likes to know where she is and what she is doing and who she is doing it with – call him possessive or maybe even crazy – another part is because he cares. He doesn't lie when he tells her she is beautiful, strong and full of light. Someone like her should've never become a vampire.
His latest minion returns from his trip with pictures and Klaus dismisses him quickly, compels him to forget about it and turns to the envelop with an eagerness he hasn't known for a while.
He sends his desk flying across the room and by the time Rebekah and Elijah have made their way inside his den to see what the commotion is about; their brother is already on the phone obviously booking three tickets to San Francisco. Rebekah bends down to grasp at the pictures and lets out a yep before handing over a single picture to Elijah. The eldest of the three almost rips the picture about.
Caroline Forbes has always been rather photogenic and she looks happy on the picture, carrying a bag and laughing at nothing in particular. But what stops Elijah, what makes Rebekah yelp and what causes the sudden agitation of Niklaus isn't the pretty blonde smiling in the picture. No, it's the one next to her. He looks exactly as they remember him, not having aged a day, hair still black as night and the signature smirk on his pouty lips.
Kol Mikaleson, very much alive and laughing along Caroline Forbes. If a picture was ever worth a thousand dollars, it's exactly that one. And guessing by Klaus screaming on the phone, they'll be reunited with their brother very soon.
a/n : why? because i think even the characters from vampire diaries need a humour-ish break now and then. everything kind of stopped making sense even if a part of me is quite glad Elena is gone. let me know what you thought, this is a rather short story to take away from the seriousness. please drop a review if you liked it or even if you didn't. hope you enjoyed the read.